


The First Last Time

by AstroGirl



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Eden - Freeform, Freedom, Gen, Introspection, Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-09
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:47:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29947437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AstroGirl/pseuds/AstroGirl
Summary: There are many last times.
Relationships: Aziraphale & Humanity, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 28
Collections: Gen Prompt Bingo Round 19





	The First Last Time

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Gen Prompt Bingo, for the prompt "last times/farewells."

The first last time is when he says farewell to Eden. 

After the humans have gone, he carrying a flaming sword and she an unborn child, trekking off into the wasteland towards whatever future the Almighty has decreed for them, it is left to him to perform his final duties as Guardian. He closes the Eastern Gate. He seals up the wall, with himself on the outside. He removes Paradise from Earth, folding it neatly away where the humans will never find it.

And he stands there and thinks, _I'll never see it again._

It is the first time he has ever thought this.

Perhaps it is strange that it should be. But he hardly knew how to think such things during the War, or even at its end. He did not understand the idea of loss, then. Did not understand how anything created could fail to be eternal. It was only afterward that he began to see that time has a direction, that things might be done that could not be undone. 

And it is only after Eden that he realizes how inescapably loss has become a part of Creation. That it will happen again and again. That it is permanent. That dead angels and vanished gardens will never live again.

Perhaps it is this that makes him glad to see the Serpent, when he encounters him once more on the other side of the wall. It's strangely reassuring, this reminder that not everyone lost in the War is gone forever, that some of them have only been changed. Like seeing human children grow to replace their parents and taking comfort in the fact that no matter how the faces differ, humanity at least goes on.

And as generation after generation is in turn lost to the irresistible new forces of time and death, it is comforting, too, to know that at least one being on Earth remembers the first of them. Remembers the scent of new creation on the breezes of Eden, and the view from the wall, and what it felt like in that moment when uncertainty first entered the world and everything began.

**

There are, of course, many more last times. The world becomes a never-ending sequence of them, until _every_ time becomes, in some fashion, a last time. He cannot enter any human place without knowing, deep inside, that he might not see it again before it falls to ruin. That even if it survives, it will be changed, inevitably, into something new.

He comes to accept this. In a way, even to cherish it. New places mean new stories, new food, new people. New opportunities for goodness and for growth. And yet, he cannot ever completely resist the desire to cling to that which is already passing, already gone. To put off the farewell. To try to keep everything just a moment longer, no matter how futile that might be, in the end.

**

Still, when the End is nigh, the final all-encompassing end, he tries to tell himself it will be wonderful. That it will be _good_. That it will be the goodbye to end all goodbyes, and after it's done he will never lose anything ever again. 

It works. A little. It works as long as he doesn't think about any of the specific, beloved things he will have say goodbye to first. It works until the only thing in this world he's never had to lose looks him in the eye and reminds him how much more he loves the unending losses of Earth than the interminable constancy of Heaven.

**

The last time he saw Eden, he stood for a long time on the wall looking in, feeling the weight of _I'll never see it again_ settling deep in his ethereal soul.

The last time he sees Heaven, he doesn't feel anything about it at all. Of all the things he might be about to lose, Heaven scarcely even registers in his consciousness. It's only later, after Crowley has said his angry goodbyes for him, that he realizes he will never see it again. Not if he is lucky.

Perhaps it ought to hurt like losing Eden. Heaven was his own Paradise, after all. It was his home, his purpose, and his faith. It was the place he was made for.

He considers that thought. He takes it out, lets it sit inside his mind a moment, and waits to feel the pang of yet another loss.

But there is nothing. 

Or rather, there are many, many things. The sounds of piano music, and birdsong, and traffic. The taste of cake and champagne. The feel of breath in his almost-human lungs. The sight of his six-thousand-year companion across the table from him, smiling as if he has won everything he's ever wanted in the world. The knowledge that tomorrow belongs to humanity and to them. 

And the love, the overwhelming, earthly love he feels for the countless precious fleeting things around him, and for the rare precious things that endure.

Perhaps in the future he will come to feel differently. After all, thanks to Crowley – thanks to Crowley twice, now – change is the true only constant here on Earth.

But for now? For now, for the first time since Eden, he feels as light as if he's never lost anything at all.


End file.
